Fact Sheet: The Facts About the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Revealed in Court
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and other Trump Administration officials have launched an all-out assault on $20 billion in transparently awarded Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) dollars intended to help lower energy costs for families and businesses, and create good jobs by investing in clean energy, transportation, and buildings across the United States. Despite repeatedly claiming in press interviews that the program was “a clear-cut case of waste and abuse” and even “criminal,” Zeldin and the Administration have been unable to provide any tangible evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the GGRF awardees.
Here are some key examples:
In the resignation of a veteran career federal prosecutor:
In February, a 24-year career Department of Justice prosecutor who directed the criminal division in the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia abruptly resigned after being pressured by acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin to direct the freezing of GGRF funds and open a criminal investigation. In her resignation letter, the prosecutor, Denise Cheung, repeatedly cited the lack of evidence to take such extraordinary actions:
“You also directed that a second letter be immediately issued to the bank under your and my name ordering the bank not to release any funds in the subject accounts pursuant to a criminal investigation being run out of USAO-DC. When I explained that the quantum of evidence did not support that action, you stated that you believed that there was sufficient evidence… As I shared with you, at this juncture, based upon the evidence I have reviewed, I still do not believe that there is sufficient evidence to issue the letter you described, including sufficient evidence to tell the bank that there is probable cause to seize the particular accounts identified. Because I believed that I lacked the legal authority to issue such a letter, I told you that I would not do so. You then asked for my resignation.”
In an April 2 court hearing:
EPA: “EPA did not terminate for Plaintiffs’ noncompliance… EPA’s bases for termination were the grants’ structure and terms, including the changes to those terms made in the twilight of the prior administration, and not conduct of Plaintiffs for which they could use the opportunity to object to explain or justify.” [EPA Filing, 3/26/25]
Judge Chutkan: “Here we are, weeks in, and you’re still unable to proffer me any evidence with regard to malfeasance.” [April 2 Hearing]
Judge Chutkan: “Tell me, can you proffer to me the evidence of commission of a violation of federal criminal law involving fraud, conflict of interest, bribery, or gratuity violations? Any one of those things?”
DOJ Attorney Sacks: “I cannot, Your Honor.”
In an April 16 court opinion:
Judge Chutkan: “Though repeatedly pressed on the issue, EPA offers no rational explanation for why it suspended the grants and then immediately terminated the entire NCIF and CCIA grant programs overnight. Nor has EPA offered any rational explanation for why it needed to cancel the grants to safeguard taxpayer resources, especially when it had begun examining the grant programs to add oversight mechanisms, or why it needed to cancel every single grant to review some aspects of the GGRF program with which it was concerned.”
In internal emails between EPA and the Department of Justice:
On April 23, POLITICO reported:
Trump administration attorneys knew they were on uncertain legal ground as they strategized ways to keep eight nonprofit groups from spending $20 billion in Biden-era climate grants that had already left the federal coffers, according to internal government emails obtained by POLITICO.
The fight to squash the spending could expose the Trump administration to billions of dollars in damages if a court later finds its actions to be unlawful, one Environmental Protection Agency lawyer warned as part of a series of Sunday night emails last month — less than 48 hours before EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin terminated the grants altogether.
In the same email chain, government lawyers acknowledged that they did not know whether criminal and civil investigations launched by the Trump administration would uncover evidence of the waste, fraud or conflicts of interest that Zeldin has publicly alleged in his frequent attacks on the climate grants. Their “short-term objective” was to block the money while those probes play out, a senior Justice Department attorney wrote in one email.
The government’s approach “is believed to have significant legal vulnerabilities,” veteran EPA career attorney Jim Payne wrote to 14 career staff and political appointees at the environmental agency, the Treasury Department and the Justice Department late on the night of March 9.
In a May 19 court hearing:
D.C. Circuit Judge Pillard: “As far as I can tell from the record [EPA terminated the grants] with zero substantiation that any fraudulent activity was occurring. Am I right? Zero substantiation.”
Also during a May 19 court hearing:
DOJ Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, political appointee Yaakov Roth: “To be clear, we’re not accusing anybody of fraud.”
Also during a May 19 court hearing:
DOJ Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, political appointee Yaakov Roth: “The accusation is not that a particular plaintiff has engaged in a particular act that constitutes fraud.”